The transplanted University Health Services are healthy again. And the medical bill is $16,695.

Asbestos was removed from an electrical vault on the Holmes Student Center’s second floor during the holiday break. The second floor is the service’s temporary home because asbestos was found last spring in the building it normally shares with the University Police.

“The abatement was not a difficult as anticipated,” said Rosemary Lane, University Health Services director. The facility is ready for students, she said.

Asbestos test done in late November showed the electrical vault with about .00157 fibers per thousand in the air when fire retardant material became loose. The Environmental Protection Agency limits allow no more than .001 fibers per thousand. The fibers were half a millimeter longer than allowed.

The test was done by Parkland Laboratories, Springfield as part of plans to install a $500,000 fire alarm system. The vault was the only area failing the inspection.

Parkland’s fee as the institutional hygienist was $6,700, said Physical Plant Project Manager Conrad Miller. Asbestos Environmental Clean, Bartonville did the abatement for about $10,000.

Miller said the cost came out of the money allotted for the new fire alarm system. The abatement’s cost will not affect the alarm’s installation.

As the institutional hygienist, Parkland supervised AEC’s abatement work and took daily air samples.

The asbestos levels were not considered immediatey dangerous and met Occupational Safety and Health Administration guidelines.

The work took about a week.

“Everything’s back to normal,” Lane said. “We’re fine.”

Although the abatement was done on the second floor, there are other areas in the student center’s more than 300,000 square feet containing asbestos.

However, Miller said those areas passed the EPA guidelines and do not pose any danger. “It is not threatening because it is enclosed – it is encapsulated,” he said.

Those areas will be abated when the asbestos becomes disturbed and filters into the air, Miller said.

Miller said the next likely trouble spot will be in a similar electrical vault in the student center’s basement.